We professors have a memory for names that is best served in one of the following ways:

Your name is an eponym (you’re named after a famous person or place),
An epiphenomenon process occurred (you told me your name and I remembered it), or
An epistolary action occurred (you wrote your name down on the homework).
Of the three choices, the last is the best because not everyone can be named Abe Lincoln and we have trouble remembering where we put our wallets.

Professor Johnson, 4/19/00, written comments posted on his office door with the suspect homework